Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife Camilla,
Duchess of Cornwall, will spend this weekend in West Marin.
The prince and duchess will attend the Point Reyes
Farmers Market Saturday, Nov. 5, in Point Reyes Station, the British
consulate in San Francisco has told the press. Later that day, they
will eat lunch with a group of West Marin’s organic farmers at
the Bolinas farm of Warren Weber.
The couple’s stay here will occur during the
third leg of an eight-day tour of the United States. The first two stops
on their trip were New York, where they visited the World Trade Center
site on Monday, and Washington, where they had lunch Wednesday with
President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.
"It’s an amazing honor, and it’s a
confirmation that our efforts here in West Marin are important far beyond
our county line," said Marin Organic executive director Helge Hellberg,
who will be the couple’s guide at the all-organic market on Saturday.
The organic farming movement is one of several environmental
causes espoused by the prince, who has his own organic farm at Highgrove
in Gloucestershire.
Hellberg said he thinks the Prince of Wales "will
find people here who really respect him for who he is and what he does."
Also attending the lunch at Weber’s farm will
be Patrick Holden, director of Britain’s Soil Association, an organic
certification and advocacy group founded in 1946. Weber credits the
association with starting the modern organic-farming movement.
Weber, who owns the oldest organic farm in California,
said that the Soil Association was championing organic practices "30
years before I started... Most of us in the organic movement in the
early years looked to the Brits for our strength."
On organic farms here and elsewhere, diversified crops
are grown on a small scale without pesticides or hormones. Advocates
of organic farms say they are a healthier and more sustainable alternative
to the large farms and ranches that supply much of our food.
In addition to West Marin’s organic farmers,
the royals will meet Marin Agricultural Land Trust executive director
Bob Berner, county Agriculture Commissioner Stacy Carlsen, West Marin
Supervisor Steve Kinsey, and Ellie Rilla, farm advisor for the University
of California cooperative extension in Marin.
Topics to be discussed, Hellberg said, will include
soil and livestock management, pest control, and stream restoration.
"It’s a good visit because it’s really
about substance," Weber said.
Weber acknowledged that security for the visit would
be tight, adding that security agents have been making preparations
at his farm. "We’ve had suits and dark glasses," he said.
On Point Reyes Station’s main street – ground
zero for the royal visit to the Farmers’ Market – no one as
of Tuesday knew quite what to expect. Danny Morrissey, owner of Point
Reyes Station Barber Shop (across the street from where the market is
held), this week said he’d heard rumors of hundreds of reporters
showing up but had received no official information from the British
consulate.
‘This’ll be a zoo’
If the crowd gets too heavy, he said, he plans to
close shop. "This place is going to be a zoo," he predicted.
The consulate has not specified the extent of Saturday’s
security provisions. However, one business owner said she thought she’d
seen security agents casing the town Tuesday morning. They were identifiable,
the merchant said, by their British accents, matching yellow ties, and
habit of "looking around and under things."
Aside from that, she said, they were "just like
tourists."
Hellberg of Marin Organic said that public access
to the Farmer’s Market will probably be "restricted"
during the royal couple’s visit, but he wouldn’t reveal whether
any roads will be closed or the market blocked off.
Residents accustomed to buying produce at the market
shouldn’t be deterred from doing so before and after the royals’
appearance, he added, even though the exact time of the visit is still
confidential.
"It’s an ordinary market that will be anything
but ordinary," he said.